Porcelain D'Uccle Breeding program 2011 to 2014

 

 I started about 4 years ago with the d'uccle breed to start my own project of showing, raising, and breeding bantams, and its been a fun experience so far. I originally started with 2 Mille Fleurs , which then expanded to 2 adults and 3 chicks ,  but about a month later a neighbor dog got into my pen and killed all my birds. In December 2011 my Grandma got me 25 cute little D'uccle chicks as a Christmas present, 10 Mille Fleurs, 5 Porcelains and 10 assorted d'uccles, and that's how my porcelain breeding program got started.

 The two photos above are of 2 of my original birds, Snowflake and Platinum.

 So far my Porcelains have had great temperaments, are great moms, and are good egg layers.

 One of some of my first Porcelain chicks that hatched out in 2012.

 Above is Colonel Blue who was out of the batch above and champion bantam at our community fair, he also won many other awards before the age of  1 .

 This is Copper a half porcelain  half Mille Fleur. His dad was Colonel Blues Brother Glacier , he is a 3rd generation bird and has put a lot of great traits into my birds.

 Above is a photo taken to compare feather quality. Generally porcelains have poor feather quality due to the lavender gene,but it can be improved by crossing them with mille fleurs which is where Copper came in, although he looks like a mille fleur, if bred to a porcelain the chicks come out with porcelain color. On the left is a 3rd generation pure porcelain , on the right is a 4th generation 3/4 porcelain which has a lot of feather quality improvement.

 This is Tundra a 2nd generation porcelain hatched this year out of my best 2 original birds, and is probably one of the best birds Ive bred so far. In this photo she is 6 months old and in moult, currently she is fully feathered and looks even better.

 Another angle of her.

 A close up of her pattern. As far as pattern goes, you want the wing spots to form wide u shaped lines in the middle of the wing ,  good spaced pattern throughout the body with nice blue barring and white spangles,  a light blue tail with a white spot on each tail feather.

A close-up of her foot feathering. Tundra has some of the longest and thickest foot feathers of my d'uccles, a trait desired in the breed , and hopefully she passes this on.

This is Polar, Tundra's brother. So far he's a great looking rooster, although he doesn't have much pattern yet. He has a good base color and better feather quality than most of my pure porcelains..

And finally one of my latest porcelain chicks , a  4th generation 3/4 porcelain. Platinum's great granddaughter, and hopefully her and my other 4th generation porcelains add the great traits they have onto the next generation with many more. ~ By C.T. ( Bugs )

D'uccle Breeding Program Update

 Since the last update Ive been busy selecting the chicks I'm going to keep, overall I'm looking for good combs,beards,feet,color and good body shape, so far these chicks have grown into very nice birds.  Above is my 3 color cross which I will be using to try and breed a chocolate colored Mille Fleur.

 This is one of the Mille Fleur roosters that I have chosen to keep for the future Mille breeding pen, he is good in most areas of the breed, with thickly feathered feet , thick beard, good comb and decent color.

 This Mille hen has been shaping up to look a lot like her mom Cookie Dough ,  although her foot feathering isn't as thick as I like she has good shape and a thick beard, I will pair her with a rooster that has thickly feathered feet.

 This is one of a few Porcelain chicks that hatched this year, she has a lot more blue than any of my Porcelain chicks, we will be breeding her to the Self blue Mottled below, what the color will be I'm not sure but my guess is a Self Blue Mottled with some cream lacing?.

 This is a comparison of 3rd and 4th generation Porcelains that shows the feather quality difference, the one on the left is a pure bred Porcelain with typical feather quality, the one on the right is 3/4 Porcelain 1/4 Mille Fleur with a lot of improvement in feather quality.

And this is the Self Blue surprise chick that I didn't expect, which we will be breeding to the porcelain hen above.

Belgian D'Uccle Breeding Program ( surprising results ! )

 Since the start of this year I have been planning how to pair up this years breeding pen for the coming of a new generation of chicks. I started in about February by culling  & selling any unwanted birds , getting it down to one rooster and seven hens. I knew there were going to be some crossing of colors and I thought I knew what the outcome would be but I was sure wrong when this rooster threw some amazing surprises !

 Above is a fraction of the chicks hatched. Most of the chicks that first hatched turned out as I thought, but the blue mottled in the middle threw me off .  If you remember, the mottled porcelain cross hen from my post Black Mottled D'Uccle * breeding project, she is the parent of the blue chick above. I knew she carried the dilute gene but it shouldn't have shown till another generation. This left me thinking maybe the dilute genetics in her were very strong and it wasn't until later I  solved the mystery.

 Above was the next  group to hatch ,  above, there are a porcelain and a self blue mottled ( under the hen). These two colors should not have shown till another generation. I got to thinking about the roosters' parents at the time he was hatched and my breeding pen only had Mille Fleur's which meant his dad was Crimson and most likely the hen above, so there shouldn't have been any dilute genes in play. But one of the days in summer  a few months before the chicks hatched I had most of the bantams out to free range which left the possibility of different colors to mix . Copper ( the rooster above ) had a shape completely different than his siblings and parents, but had a similar shape to Glacier my Porcelain cockerel which leaves me to think Glacier is his dad and would explain a lot.

 This is one of a few chicks that came out looking like this with two pinstripes and a dot on the head. I think it will be fun to see if it will turn out like a regular Mille or somewhat different. So far 25 chicks have hatched with more coming. All colors hatched are Mille Fleur's with Porcelain genetics, a Self blue mottled, a Blue mottled, and Porcelains with Mille genetics. My main goal is to get better shape in my birds as far as now and  I've seen a lot of improvement in the last 4 generations with better foot feathering and better beards , thicker body type and posture. I'm pleased with the results.

Above are my two second generation pure Porcelain chicks with a Barred Rock Americana Cross for my new laying flock. To read how the Porcelain to Mille genetics work see my post D'Uccle Color Genetics *. I will update how the chicks are coming along soon along with some photos of their family tree.  By Bugs .

D'uccle Color Genetics

 In this post I will  be writing about  some of the d'uccles color genetics and how to improve some of the problems that occur in these colors.

 Above is Copper one of the chicks hatched this year , if you look you can see that there are two or three shades of orange throughout his body, this is one problems of the Mille Fleur color , you can breed this out by crossing a Porcelain with a Mille, the chicks will come out as mille  Fleur's with lavender genes, if you breed the chicks back to other Mile Fleur's for a few generations you should be able to get the Porcelain genetics out.

 

 Above is a photo of the wing of my Porcelain rooster this is a feather quality problem that happens with Porcelains mainly the Roosters, you can breed this out by breeding them to mille Fleur's , the chicks will come out Mille Fleur's with Porcelain Genes , then you breed the chicks back to other Porcelains those chicks should then come out Porcelains, a few generations of breeding them to Porcelains that haven't been crossed to any other colors should eliminate the Mille Fleur Genes.                                                                                                                                                       Below is one of the chicks from my Black Mottled Project, He is a Porcelain Black Mottled Cross the red Color in his feathers comes from the mille Fleur in the background of the Porcelain , the porcelain is a Mille Fleur with the Lavender gene  which turns buff or red to cream and black to Light blue , breeding one of the chicks below should Produce Blue or Self Blue Mottleds which I guess I will find out when I breed the hen I hatched this year.